A colleague asked me this question, and I couldn't come up with an answer that satisfied him, so I'm wondering if anyone can help:
Why does a man with a short temper become a short-tempered man?
In ...

I found a hyphenated word , “not-technically–in-a-recession” in the sentence of September 28 New York Times’ article titled “Why Obama Is Winning,” written by co-ed columnist, Ross Douthat. It reads:
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A copywriter I'm working with wrote "One-Day Only Promotion" but my feeling is that "One-Day-Only Promotion" is correct. The first three words describe 'Promotion'. I know you don't hyphenate adverbs, ...

In a compound noun with a postpositive adjective, such as "Director-General" or "Court Martial," the noun is pluralized by using the plural form of the first word (i.e. "Directors-General" or "Courts ...

I'm wondering about the distinction between expressions like "high performance" and "high-performance", or "high level" and "high-level" and other similar pairs of words which are sometimes used with ...

There are at least a few cases in which a compound word or phrase, transparently containing an obscene word, seems to be considered less obscene (in some dialect/registers/circumstances) than the word ...

Is there a term for words like Snowmageddon, Nipplegate and even cheeseburger?
I know they're portmanteaus (or portmanteaux), but they seem to belong to a special class of portmanteau.
In the title ...

When should a noun acting as an adjective be plural, and when should it be singular?
And when should it be possessive, like baker's dozen and when should it be plural possessive, like farmers' market?
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I notice great variability in how this concept is expressed. Does the term vary depending on the context? Should one use one variation when discussing biology, for example, and another when talking ...

Lewis Carroll popularized the use and creation of (what may be considered to be) a special form of compound or conjoined words. I propose that these are different than other compound words (e.g., per ...

I'm trying to figure out what style guidelines or rules apply to creating compound adjectives when adverbs are involved. Typically you create compound adjectives when there is potential for ambiguity ...